A previous boss of mine talked a lot about being world-class. I even put his list of what it takes on the wall of my office.

And step one? Focus.

The way I see it, companies that run after the latest marketing fad to solve marketing issues are missing out on being world-class. The shiny new toys distract them from what really matters.

Social media is fun. But it’s a tool to be deployed in a strategic manner not magic fairy dust. For most companies, the best place they can spend marketing attention and dollars is in making their product, customer experience and service world-class.

It’s one of the things that disturbs me about the Comcast story. Frank’s battling the demons as best he can, but if Comcast invested in making its product and service even a little better, it wouldn’t need Frank on Twitter. People talk like it’s a great story for Comcast, but it just highlights how broken their product is to start with. Frank’s actions would be expected (and thus unremarkable) at a world-class company.

So, are you willing to commit to focus and be world-class? Or will you just keep looking for magic fairy dust?